Five-Two 26th Royal Tyran Infantry
by Durecel
Summary: Second Lieutenant Lucy Heartfilia, having just completed her officer training, joins the boys of Five-Two 26RTI on a routine patrol of Halvo Bay two days before the COG's global Hammer of Dawn strikes. Of course, nothing is ever truly routine in the COG. Rated T for language and violent themes.


**Gears of War, its characters and plot are owned and copyrighted to The Coalition.  
Fairy Tail, its characters and plot are owned by Hiro Mashima.**

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Endeavour Naval Base was a port with a history spanning from the Pendulum Wars, many naval and submarine reconnaissance and special operation missions had been launched from the base. The CNV Seabass, the first of the Seabass class special ops submarines, had set sail from Endeavour to shadow the UIR's Third Fleet before the beginning of the Battle of Bonbourg. The submarine had been used to confirm the various coordinates for the Hammer of Dawn's first use in anger after the Indies had refused to surrender.

Six weeks after Emergence Day, the base – along with the surrounding city of Halvo Bay – had been overrun and captured by the Locust forces of General Karn: The very same general that had wiped out the majority of the Indie state of Gorasnaya. After unauthorised actions taken by Kilo squad of the 4th Ephyra Light Infantry to kill Karn, the city was eventually recaptured by the COG. Tragically the commanding officer charged with the defence of the city, Colonel Ezra P. Loomis of the Onyx Guard, was killed with his men.

Today, one year after E-Day, a single squad of the 26th Royal Tyran Infantry were preparing to go out on patrol from Endeavour. Five-Two, a squad of the Special Tactics Group, were being briefed in the Combat Information Centre by Captain Mirajane Strauss.

"This is 2nd Lieutenant Lucy Heartfilia; she'll be accompanying you out on patrol today, Captain." The white haired captain informed her field counterpart.

Lucy saluted to the Captain that she would be following as part of her training. The blonde girl was unnerved by the steely look in the Captain's face as he acknowledged her salute; she was also put off by the polar opposite dispositions of her new Captain's squad.

Her new squad was made up of her captain, her, and two corporals. One corporal was an engineer, with slanty eyes, dark hair and a cold demeanour, whilst the other one was involved in explosives; having droopy eyes, pink hair and a much more bubbly personality. Her new captain wore the famous black armour of the Onyx Guard, much to her surprise, whilst wearing the fatigues of Two – Six RTI underneath.

Five-Two were under orders to patrol a collection of neighbourhoods to assess how many civilians had evacuated for the Jacinto Plateau prior to the Hammer of Dawn strikes that had been ordered by Chairman Prescott two days prior.

"Are we seriously just going to up sticks and fall back to Jacinto and waste the whole planet?" the corporal with pink hair asked as Five-Two entered their third hour of patrol.

"Why are you complaining? This is a pyromaniac's wet dream." The dark haired corporal answered. Lucy had learned that the pink haired man was called Natsu, and the engineer was named Gray.

"Hey, I like fire and explosions, but this plan of Prescott's is insane. How many people will die if they can't make it to Jacinto by the end of tomorrow?" Natsu retorted.

"The fool can't kill any more people than the Grubs did on E-Day. There aren't enough left for that to happen." Their Captain interrupted as the squad continued to march down an increasingly abandoned residential street four kilometres south east of Endeavour.

As the group continued their patrol, Lucy tried to strike up some conversation with her new squad mates in attempt to build up a relationship with them.

"So, any of you have families?"

"Nah, I was between foster families growing up as a kid; my brother, Zeref, and I never staid with the same couple for more than a month. Parents died not long after I was born, and my brother died in the Battle of Bonbourg. Killed by an Indie rocket salvo, he never knew what hit him apparently…" Natsu answered. It was at that moment Lucy realised there had been a major downward tone shift.

"Only child. Mom died on E-Day, Dad was an Unvanquished like us, declared MIA not long after E-Day." Gray answered. "What about you, Miss?"

"My mother died of cancer when I was six," Lucy looked downtrodden, realising that she'd probably just tore open old wounds for the rest of her squad. She'd certainly ripped one of her own ones open and subsequently pissed on it. "I don't know about my father. Nor do I care frankly."

Both corporals decided it was best not to pry any further about the lieutenant's father based on the acidity in her voice.

"What about you Captain, do you have any family?"

"Dad died in Aspho Fields, and Mum died in a car crash two weeks before E-Day. I didn't realise at the time just how lucky she was." A group of cars and vans drove past the group, each one full to the brim with possessions of the occupants. They were all headed out of Halvo Bay and headed toward Jacinto. "Why so many people are leaving for Jacinto is beyond me." The Captain thought allowed as the impromptu convoy disappeared into the distance.

"They probably don't want to get caught up in Prescott's Hammer strikes. Can you blame them? Jacinto's the only city safe from Emergence Holes." Lucy reasoned. She was met with a disapproving grunt.

"Not the only place. Personally, I'd be going the opposite direction."

"But you'd be stopped by the ocean… And don't the Grubs have Leviathans prowling the oceans?" Lucy replied.

"That's a bridge I'd blow up when we got to it. But like I said, Jacinto's not the only safe haven from the grubs; there's also Vectes."

"Wasn't Vectes and the rest of the Lesser Islands' communications cut off after E-Day?" Gray asked, unsure of why the Captain thought he'd be any safer there than in Jacinto.

"Yep, but I don't recall there being any reports from the Lesser Islands about Locust popping out of the ground on E-Day. Plus, there's nothing of strategic or tactical value there. The grubs don't have a reason to attack it."

"Do they need a reason to attack anything?" Lucy asked perplexed.

"You realise that's the mentality that got the supposed Hero of Halvo Bay killed, right?" Gray asked.

"Speaking of Colonel Loomis, I've been meaning to ask you Captain; why do you have an Onyx helmet and armour?" the blonde lieutenant asked.

"Because I was originally Onyx and if they want it back, they can peel it off of my stone cold body."

Despite the Onyx Guard's fluctuating reputation within the COG's armed forces, Onyx Guardsmen were widely regarded as the hardest bastards in the military because of the long and arduous selection process. Officers within the Onyx Guards were regarded as such and more, as their recruitment and selection phase was almost twice as long as that of enlists. As such, even dishonourable discharge Guardsmen were not known for surrendering the iconic armour.

Five – Two had received an order from Control to investigate suspected Locust activity in an industrial area two kilometres south of ENB. There had been reports of seismic murmurs and 'thumping' from around an abandoned imulsion refinery complex.

"OK Miss Lieutenant, what does thumping tend to indicate?" Natsu quizzed the junior officer. The pink haired corporal had been bombarding Lucy with questions that he expected an officer to know.

"Tremors followed by seeders and nemacysts, then a few hours later a blood bath, Corporal." Lucy answered, visibly irritated by Natsu's constant questions. "Anything else?"

The demolition expert of the group hid behind Gray, fearful of the annoyed second lieutenant. The trio stopped when their captain suddenly halted.

"Helmets on, Five – Two." The whole of Five - Two put their helmets on, their posture changing from relaxed to a firing position, Lancer's at the ready. "Control from Five – Two."

"Go ahead Five – Two." Mira's voice came through the squad's headsets. It was a good thing that they could get through to CIC and vice-versa; it meant that the tremor had yet to summon any seeders just yet.

"No sign of any seeders yet, but there are signs of Locust activity."

Lucy, Gray and Natsu then noticed what their Captain had meant; several empty magazines from hammerburst assault rifles and gorgon sub-machine pistols were lying on the ground, and numerous bullet holes dotted around in walls and pipes around the site.

"Understood Five – Two. Just so you're aware, Command informed me that Sutherland platoon of the Onyx Guards have disappeared in the complex."

"Don't tell me; command wants us to find the stupid sods?"

"Not quite. They want you to confirm their status and provide support as necessary." There was a slight pause before Mira got a response.

"Oh joy… Understood Control, Five – Two out. Right, c'mon you lot, let's go find those arrogant twats and hold their hands for 'em." If it wasn't for the helmets they were now wearing, Lucy would've seen the smirk and boisterous grin on Gray and Natsu's faces, respectively. "Gray, you and Lucy head for anything resembling a control centre, see if we can get eyes on either the grubs or Sutherland. Natsu, you're with me."

The squad split into the two groups, with Lucy and Gray heading towards the nearest brick building to their position, whilst Natsu and the Captain continued to move forward further into the complex. Lucy and Gray located an entrance into the building, the dark haired soldier switched out his lancer assault rifle for the gnasher shotgun before the blonde forced the door. The engineer burst into the room, quickly sweeping his left and behind the door whilst Lucy swept the right side. Nothing of interest was found except for the odd wretch carcass.

Lucy motioned for Gray to take point as he was better armed for a close quarter battle than she was. Neither of them was entirely sure what the building was for yet, they'd yet to come across a definitive sign of what it was.

Outside, Natsu and the Captain were making steady progress investigating the refinery. They didn't really know what to look for as the Onyx platoon could have been in the compound for any number of reasons. The unknown unknowns surrounding this entire deployment didn't sit well with anyone.

Various pipes criss-crossed the complex both on ground level and over head height, turning it into a giant maze. As nothing so far was standing out to either Natsu or the Captain, they radioed through to control to try and get some information on what the Onyx Guard were even in the plant for.

"Command's … tight lipped … tried, but they just won't tell me." Unlike earlier, Mira's voice was cutting in and out during her transmission.

"Say again Control. Your signal's very weak."

"Seeder … probably emerged…" The signal cut out completely, but fortunately Mira got the message across before their comms went totally down the pan. As soon as the transmissions had started to become shaky, Natsu was keeping an eye on the skies through the lattice work of industrial pipes.

"Cap," the pink haired corporal motioned his lancer toward the sky, there they could both see one or two nemacysts floating in the air. "Seeder must've only just surfaced."

"Which means the tremor must still be nearby. We kill him; that leaves us with just the one seeder to deal with." Moving swift of foot, with the utmost care to avoid being spotted and subsequently attacked by the floating nemacysts, the pair hurried through the industrial maze in an attempt to find the tremor that would've summoned the first seeder.

In the increasingly apparent disused building, Lucy and Gray had made their way to some kind of observation deck that looked over the entire complex. Various control panels lined the walls underneath the windows which had been made dark by a year of industrial pollution and neglect. Above the grimy panes of glass were a row of monitors. One or two had cracks in the screen, but none were currently working.

"Captain, we've found what looks to be a control room of some kind-" Lucy was interrupted mid-transmission by static, giving her slight earache. Gray pointed out the increasing number of nemacysts currently floating over the compound. "Brilliant, comms are down. Gray, see if you can get those monitors on, hopefully they're plugged into security cameras."

"I'm one step ahead of you, Miss." Gray had already pulled a steel panel off the base of one of the control panels and was half way through basically hotwiring it. A couple of seconds later and the monitors flickered into life along with the control panels.

"Good job, Corporal." Lucy commented as she could now see over the whole compound. Each monitor showed a live feed from a camera somewhere in the compound; however to both Lucy and Gray it was pointless as even with the camera's identification number in the corner of each screen, neither knew where the hell anything in the compound was. "Oh no…"

Lucy's mutter got Gray's attention, seeing as how the second lieutenant's gaze was affixed to a single screen. Quickly scanning all of the monitors Gray quickly saw what was wrong: They'd found Sutherland Platoon; or rather what was left of their bodies.

"What the fuck…?"

The COG was aware that the Locust had at least one species of creature that gorged on human flesh; the bloodmount. However, bloodmounts were known to pretty much just savage the entire torso and head of a human body, typically the ribcage would be left with the limbs somewhat spared and still sort of attached. All that Lucy and Gray could see for the most part though were just severed limbs clad in black armour.

"What did this?" Lucy asked no one in particular.

"Forget what did it, we gotta tell Natsu and the Captain." Gray's statement brought Lucy out of her trance. She began to wrack her brain for ideas on how to contact the other half of her squad now that their comms were screwed.

Gray fortunately spotted a map hung up on the wall near the door they'd entered through. Quick analysis of it found where all the cameras were positioned and what number they were, plus where internal phones were located around the plant. Realising this, Lucy found a phone in its cradle on the control panel.

With the map laid out, the pair rapidly searched through the various cameras to try and spot the other two and work out if there was a phone nearby. Lucy was flicking through as many of the feeds as she could on the clearest screen trying to locate their squad mates, whilst Gray was looking to see if he could find something akin to a phone directory, or just instructions on how to use them.

"I got them! Camera BP32!" Lucy cried out as she located her squad mates. His search having been fruitless, Gray quickly scanned the map to see what the nearest security phone was to them.

"Try 266 on the phone. There's no directory or instructions in here, so let's just hope that the ID number is the same as the phone's actual number." Gray responded. Both of them were rushing, but neither sounded panicked, externally anyway.

Natsu and the Captain were well and truly lost now, the nemacysts were at least 200 metres away from their position now, but with everywhere currently looking the same it was difficult to tell if that was a good thing or not.

The pair carefully turned a corner, making sure to not walk into a possible ambush, something the Captain reckoned the missing platoon had done, knowing the Onyx Guard anyway. Fortunately there wasn't an ambush waiting for them. Instead they found a box with grubby stickers plastered on it saying Emergency Phone.

When it started ringing, both Natsu and the Captain were unsure of what to do with it. Using his chainsaw bayonet, the Captain cut a two foot long piece of steel off of a nearby girder. The Captain used the steel plank to open the box from at least some distance away in case it was booby trapped, and again to knock the phone off the cradle.

When it didn't go bang after a couple of seconds, the Captain picked the receiver up to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Oh thank God! Captain, Sutherland's been KIA, we need to leave ASAP." The Captain was reassured to hear Lucy's voice on the other end of the phone; however he was unsure of why they would desperately need to leave.

"Hang on Lieutenant. There's a tremor around here somewhere, once we kill it and the seeder, we'll return to Endeavour. Where are you?"

"We're in a control room of some kind. We've got eyes on you through a security cam right now."

"Great! Find the tremor and guide us to wherever it's going."

Lucy mouthed for Gray to use one of the other monitors to locate the tremor. When he found it, he pointed it out to Lucy who then reeled off what types of Locust were escorting it. A mauler, two theron guards and a type that neither Lucy nor Gray could identify. It was a foot and a half taller than the tremor and the mauler, armed with nothing more than a serrated, evil looking knife. As well as this, it was surrounded by what looked like shadows on the monitor.

"Must be a big shot of some kind, like Karn." The Captain mused aloud. "Direct us toward the tremor, we'll deal with him and leave a trap for the rest once that's been neutralised. Rendezvous with us where we are right now, then we'll get rid of the seeder."

"Understood sir."

Natsu and the Captain followed Lucy's direction to a brilliant ambush spot; it was on a raised platform with a perfect view of where the tremor was predicted to be, and numerous places to plant grenade traps to deter the other grubs from following them once they'd completed their objective.

The pair had managed to get to their little outlook and set the traps up before the tremor and his escorts arrived because, unlike their prey, they were much swifter afoot. Boomer species of the Locust weren't known for their agility after all.

To ensure maximum effectiveness of the traps they had had to start the pumps in order to get sufficient imulsion flowing through the pipes, at a slow enough rate so that the grubs wouldn't be alerted to their activation.

When the escort began to appear at the predicted site, both Natsu and the Captain switched out their lancers for their secondary weapons; a Scorcher flamethrower and Torque Bow respectively. They watched as the mauler dragged its exploding flail behind it, obviously it was taking point flanked by the two therons, followed by the tall shrouded big shot. The tremor was the last to appear. The grubs seemed to be observing their surroundings as if they were assessing its suitability to summon a seeder to.

The Captain took this opportunity to start charging up a shot of the Locust-made weapon. It was when the tremor pulled out the thumper rod, about to place it in the ground that the Captain lined up the shot. Using the targeting laser to pinpoint where the explosive bolt would land, the Captain had it pinned exactly on the tremor's head just as it was about to drive the rod further into the ground with the hammer portion of the thumper.

Releasing the trigger launched the armour piercing bolt straight and true, taking the tremor's head clean off before impaling it in an imulsion pipe that was behind it. The boomer type Locust never knew what hit it. A fraction of a second after impacting the wall, the torque bow tip detonated; exploding itself and igniting the imulsion vapours within the pipe. The resultant blast killed one of the therons instantly and severely wounded the second.

Natsu and the Captain watched on to see that the shadowy aura surrounding the unknown Locust fly away from the flames for several seconds, allowing the pair to see the big shot's true appearance: a 10ft tall theron guard without a helmet.

"What the hell are those things around that big one, kryll?!" Natsu cried out as the bat-like creatures returned to their master, returning him to his former shadowy appearance.

"And they're obeying him?" The Captain shouted as they watched the unusually tall Locust rear his right arm back before thrusting it toward them, the swarm of kryll launching directly toward them.

"Sssssslaughter!" They heard the Locust big shot shout. A fraction of the swarm tripped the grenade traps set by Natsu, simultaneously exploding and igniting the imulsion within the pipes the grenades had been tagged to. Fire engulfed two thirds of the kryll swarm; however those that had triggered the trap had escaped the inferno and were continuing toward the two COG soldiers.

Relying solely on instinct, Natsu let rip a blast of flame from the scorcher; incinerating the remains of the attacking swarm. The instantaneous roar and heat from the flamethrower was certainly a relief to the Captain's ears, especially after hearing several crispy carcasses dropping like flies.

Rather than stay around to see what else the big grub had up his sleeve, Natsu and the Captain immediately sprinted back toward the rendezvous point with Gray and Lucy. The quicker they buried this seeder and exited this Halloween themed maze-like complex, the better.

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 **A/N: Originally this was going to be a one-shot, however, half way through writing I lost inspiration/urge/desire to finish it - as is often the case with my writings. If this chapter is well received by you, please leave a review stating such and that you'd like to see it finished. Fingers crossed that if enough people leave this positive messages the 'want' to finish this piece will return.**

 **Thank you for reading.**


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